Where Defeat Is Not An Option

In preparation for having a Republican Administration, the MSM is finally noticing that the jobs being created under Obama are often sub-par…no blame will be given to Obama for this, but it is believed by the MSM that this can be used against Trump starting January 20th. Look for the MSM to rediscover the homeless issue, as well. They have learned nothing from 2016 – and they’ll just go further down the Progressive rat-hole during the Trump Administration.

Hillary is going to throw her big money donors a party…which is nice, except it wasn’t exactly the payoff they were expecting. I’m betting that somewhere in the back of her mind is a desire to try again in 2020. It will depend on the circumstances in late 2018, but I don’t think her ambition has been lessened by two humiliating losses.

Maybe Einstein was wrong? My take: who the heck knows. But anyone talking about “settled science” is probably talking nonsense.

Obama’s Defense Department – wasting $125 billion per year. That’s enough to build about 10 Ford-class aircraft carriers. Big defense budgets don’t equal military strength – if we properly used our resources, we could have a much more powerful military force at a much lower cost. The concept that eliminating waste and fraud for reducing spending is always ridiculed…but ridiculed by those who profit off the current way of doing business. My guess is that at least 1 in 3 federal dollars is wasted. I bet we could cut spending by 20% and provide better for our needs than we do now…if we just had the will to make the government do the right thing. That would be about a $700 billion reduction in spending. The 2016 deficit was just about $600 billion.

Here’s my guess. A right-winger turns on his favorite television show and has his favorite character tell him his favorite candidate is demonic. He turns on the news and hears “journalists” edit out stories of Democrat malfeasance while emphasizing Republican corruption. He goes to the movies and has his political beliefs insulted and derided. His favorite singer hates him. His professor excoriates him. His employer would fire him if he knew what he thought…

…A leftist? He floats in a candy-cane cloud of self-congratulating self-reinforcement. Hollywood, the news media, academia, they all tell him: “You’re smart. You’re good. You’re right. You’re nice. You’re going to win the election. Anyone can see that. How could you lose? Anyone who disagrees with you is bad, stupid, mean, wicked.”

No wonder these people whine and cry when things don’t go their way. Spending their days in a pink haze of bias, how could they ever have seen it coming?

If you ever wondered why we have stupid people in the United States, Robert Stacy McCain points out the reason:

…Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) don’t want to admit the real nature of their own irrational prejudices, and Republicans are too polite to call them out on it. Has anyone in the Republican Party asked, for example, how much federal aid to education goes to elite private schools like Swarthmore College (annual tuition $49,104), where students enroll in “Queering God: Feminist and Queer Theology”? Why should the devout Catholic or Baptist be taxed to support such nonsense? Where are the GOP senators and congressmen demanding to know what kind of “education” taxpayers are being required to subsidize?

Because the Republicans are too polite (or too stupid) to call attention to what’s going on in our taxpayer-funded schools, a generation of young people has been indoctrinated in the anti-American prejudices of the Democrats who control university campuses…

Its not just that stupid people teach stupid things to youngsters but, also, because we refuse to stop the stupidity! If we want to stop the stupid, the first step is to stop paying for it…or, if that seems unfair, then at least insist that right next to Queering God there be a course on the works of C. S. Lewis or G. K. Chesterton. I’m all for kids being challenged in their views…and I think that Lewis is far more challenging than anything you’re likely to find in a major college these days (and let’s not even get into St. Thomas, or even Martin Luther, for our Protestant friends…). With the massive amounts of federal dollars pouring into education year after year, we do have a great deal of leverage…because regardless of ideology, the most important thing College Administrators serve is the dollar. We’re paying the piper, we should call the tune. Start making the dollars dependent upon intellectual diversity (ie, hiring even just a couple of moderately conservative professors every now and again) will start to break the stranglehold the left holds on higher education. And as an added benefit, the kids will actually learn something. You know, not just get a credential, but some education to go along with it.

Ace has a great article about how the left lies about everything – it is mostly about the Scopes Monkey Trial, which has gone down in Progressive History as the decisive conflict between Ignorant, Anti-Science Christians and Enlightened Progressives. Ace points out that this Narrative is presented in it’s most strongest form in the movie, Inherit the Wind; which is a great movie…but, also, a false story. It is, though, the story that most people know – to a large degree, the movie based on the trial is the “history” that most people believe. This is similar to how the movie The Manchurian Candidate is how most people think of the McCarthy Era. The bottom line, however, about Inherit the Wind is that it leaves out the fact that Science wasn’t cross-examined, only the Bible was…just as in The Manchurian Candidate the reality of Communist infiltration of the American government was left out (and, indeed, was turned into Right Wing infiltration…as being far more real and dangerous than those silly, old Commies). As Progressive propaganda, both movies are great – but as a way to see what happened, the gaps in their Narrative turn them into Progressive lies…and only two of ten thousand Progressive lies which have taken hold in the United States.

Lies, believed, can have a very terrible effect on a nation’s fortunes. Take a look at France – in 1914, the French simply didn’t know how to quit. No matter how bad it got (and the French defeats of the first few weeks contained the very worst losses in war suffered by any nation in a comparable period) the French just kept on fighting. In 1940, after a brief resistance (in which, to be fair, some – but not many – French forces fought with sublime courage) 1,900,000 French soldiers – still in possession of their arms and the ability to resist – voluntarily went into German captivity. What happened? Mostly it is explained by France being exhausted from WWI…but the Germans had suffered quite a bit in that war, too. Why were they so willing to have at it, again? Lost in most stories of France during the inter-war years is that French government policy was to instruct, via the public schools, the youth of France in the pointlessness of war…pacifism was the reigning orthodoxy. Prior to WWI, there wasn’t that – and, also, it was only just prior to WWI that the French government took control of education away from the Catholic Church. The 1914 generation was imbued with faith and patriotism…the 1940 generation was imbued with pacifism. That pretty much is all one needs to know – especially if you look at a situation map on May 13th, 1940 and realize that France had the forces in place to stop the German attack…and just didn’t have the spirit to launch the necessary counter-attack. People were taught a lie – that war is always bad and pointless – and they responded to that lie; by refusing to fight in what they viewed as a bad and pointless war. The truth is that war is bad, but not at all pointless…especially when you’re being invaded by a foe who wishes to reduce you to slavery.

There are plenty of lies believed in the United States. It is impossible to list them all in a blog post. Suffice it for our purposes to note that Progressives believe that the hostility of the Iranian regime towards us stems from the coup of 1953 – and President Obama is, by all appearances, one who so believes. It really isn’t hard to see – he was educated at Progressive institutions of higher education and the orthodoxy they teach is just that: we were the bad guys vis a vis Iran and anything they do against us isn’t an act of evil, but an act of self-defense. Because this lie is believed – and acted upon – we’ve now got Obama’s “Iran Deal” which will assist greatly in building up Iran’s economic and military power, including in the area of nuclear weapons. This will, in turn, put us (and the world) in an ever more dangerous situation; and a situation which may have to be paid for in blood, ours and theirs. Meanwhile, the simple fact of not having that lie (that the Coup is the key) would have led us to a rational policy regarding Iran…and, by this time, no Iranian mullah-regime (Obama really had a chance in 2009 when Iran was simmering with revolution to put an end to the whole problem).

Right now, we do have a chance to start afresh in the United States. The lies are still there – and widely believed – but we don’t have to have policies (domestic and foreign) built upon the lies. In fact, in Donald Trump we might have a vehicle (even if unwitting) to cut through the lies and actually get to rational policy. His phone call with the President of Taiwan more and more speaks to my mind on this. For all I know, they only exchanged pleasantries about the weather…but the fact that we’re no longer basing our Taiwan policy on the lie that the People’s Republic of China has a valid interest in Taiwanese affairs is like a breath of fresh air. If you’re working an equation and you start with “1 plus 1 equals 3” then you’re going to come out wrong, in the end, no matter how much correct math follows later. There is no such thing as a half-truth – there is either truth, or lie. Add a speck of lie to your argument, and you’ve got 100% lie. We’ve been working our China policy based on a lie about Taiwan…and, so, we haven’t been able to fully craft a strategic response to China’s recent aggressiveness in the area. Base our policy on the truth – that for all intents and purposes, Taiwan is an independent nation – then we can quickly put together a military system which would make any Chinese act of aggressive a fool’s errand.

And so it goes all down the line. We don’t have to make our policies based upon absurdities. Think about how nice it will be, for instance, to have education policy based upon reality rather than upon foolish lies? To have energy policy based upon what is most efficient, rather than scare-stories about global warming or some theory that setting up a bird-cuisinart is better than natural gas? Just having military policy based upon the need for the military to be prepared for war rather than proper levels of diversity will be a huge improvement. A little luck and in 10 years or so, we might be a people who go about figuring out what is true and just going with that.

Trump spoke to the President of Taiwan and it set off a firestorm of criticism. A lot of people are worried about what effect this will have on US-China relations. I can only think it will work to an improvement. The best relations are maintained when both sides are firm and understand each others position.

First off, a little history lesson:

Over the past 121 years, mainland China has ruled Taiwan for a total of four (4) years. The Island was annexed by Japan after the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 and then stayed in Japanese hands until 1945. From 1945 to 1949, Taiwan was ruled from the mainland, but in 1949 the government of China was chased out and made itself a home in Taiwan. Officially, the government of Taiwan considers itself the legitimate government of all of China, while the Chinese government considers itself the rightful owner of Taiwan. Both positions are absurd. The writ of the People’s Republic of China has never run to Taiwan and the youngest Taiwanese who could possibly have been a part of a Chinese government would be about 90, now. About 87% of Taiwan’s population is native to Taiwan – wasn’t born in China, nor under the rule of the People’s Republic of China. While plenty of people in Taiwan still desire a theoretical reunification with China, no one wants to come under the rule of the current government in Beijing – and the younger generation is ever more Taiwanese. To say that Taiwan must be considered part of China is as silly as saying that Austria must be part of Germany, simply because for a brief while Germany ruled Austria and the people of Austria are ethnic Germans.

Also, China needs to know that for all their economic advancement and their desire for increased global power, the United States is still far ahead of China and that we much prefer the people of east Asia and the western Pacific rule their own destinies. Trump’s action will cause some shrieks from China’s leaders – but the bottom line is that it lets them know that the days of the United States playing the patsy to China are over. Trump did a good thing – an honest thing; the hypocrisy of our position vis a vis Taiwan has been a nauseating relic of the Cold War and it is past time it as done away with. If Taiwan ever freely decides to unite itself with China, all well and good – but unless and until such time, it is our duty as the premier free nation on Earth to ensure that the free people of Taiwan are not forced into Chinese servitude.

If you’re thinking of staffing up your intelligence agency, this kind of guy is probably not your ideal choice.

What will really upset you about this is that we lost to these guys in 2008 and 2012: 42% of Democrats think the recount will result in Hillary winning. That’s why Stein is able to get so much money! Ask anyone with an above-room-temp IQ and they’ll tell you: there is NO WAY the recount will change the result. But there’s 42% of Democrats thinking it will. These are the smart people? These are the people who got degrees? This is the Reality-Based Community? If brains were dynamite, these guys couldn’t blow their noses…

Rumor is that Trump is considering Senators Manchin (D-WV) and Heitkamp (D-ND) for Cabinet positions. Both are centrist Democrats. Both can help build more Trump bridges to a lot of Democrats turned off by the hard-left turn of the Democrat party. Both are up for re-election in 2018 in States where Trump crushed it. Both seats would almost certainly fall to the GOP, should they take positions in Trump’s Administration. This is brilliant politics, folks.

…The basis of any Trump Revolution would have to be energy. The shale-led revival of America’s energy production was the most important economic development of the Obama administration, and Trump is likely to double down on it. The turnaround in America’s energy fortunes is almost a miracle. Over the last ten years, U.S. oil production has grown by more than 3.6 million barrels per day—an output increase of roughly 75 percent. Natural gas production has seen similar joy, rising nearly 52 percent over the last decade. This hydrocarbon boom has defied the predictions of most analysts, who expected American oil production to plummet alongside falling crude prices over these past two years. Instead, the shale industry has relentlessly pursued innovations that have allowed it to keep the oil and gas flowing, despite unfavorable market conditions…

The follow-on effects of a completely unleashed American energy sector are countless – just in making American energy so cheap that manufacturing becomes competitive in the United States would be a major boon to our economy. Don’t listen to the naysayers who are insisting that we can’t revive manufacturing in America. We can. They’ll use the hook of “those jobs aren’t coming back”…which is true, but only in the very narrow and meaningless sense that the particular manufacturing jobs of 20 years ago aren’t coming back…but a new, automated factory employing 100 workers is still 100 jobs in manufacturing that we didn’t have before. We can set this up so that cheap, consumer goods are made here and exported to China, folks…but also to all manner of nations which are rising out of poverty and demanding the sorts of consumer goods we’ve taken for granted for a half century or more. We can do it.

Democrat Congressman: we have no strategy. Our first clue on that was the re-election of Pelosi as Minority Leader…perhaps to be Much Smaller Minority Leader before too long…

General Mattis is to be Secretary of Defense. The change will be rather night-and-day, I suspect. I don’t think our military will be spending a lot of time on diversity awareness over the next four years…

Looks like Stein might not be able to recount Pennsylvania – appears that the real deadline for contesting the vote was November 21st…she can take it to court, but even that appears to be a long, tortuous process. In my view, this proves that the whole thing was a scam from start to finish…plus an expression of someone who despises the Constitutional governance of the United States.

Star Wars is a treasured memory of my youth – the three prequels, however, sucked. I haven’t seen the latest sequel and now I never will. Can’t stand mindless Hollywood types thinking they have anything to add to the debate. Don’t these nitwits realize that the golden age of Hollywood is immediately available? We don’t have to watch the utter crap they are producing these days…

Should Conservatism embrace Populism? Andrew McCarthy says, “no”. The reality is that Conservatism, properly understood, would defend Populism…because we do live in a democratic republic and that means the popular will, limited by Constitutional stricture, must rule the political day. Certainly we must preserve the Constitution…but that requires us to preserve the role of the people not just in voting on the issues but in deciding what issues will be voted on. One may not like what the people are on about, but if the people are not able to decide what issues are important, than we live in a tyranny…you may not want to debate free trade and protectionism, but if the people want to debate it, then you darn well have to have a debate over it, or there is no freedom.

It’s now Christmas season – a season of love and mercy. But Progressives are making it difficult. Jill Stein managed to sucker enough people into paying for a recount – so far, only in Wisconsin, but it looks like Pennsylvania and Michigan will get the sore-loser treatment, as well. Do note that our Progressives, in their relentless pursuit of electoral purity, aren’t challenging the results in New Hampshire and Minnesota – even though New Hampshire was closer than Wisconsin. It won’t work, Progressives – if anything, it will just increase Trump’s margin in all three States slightly.

According to this article, Obama and his team are the adults in the Democrat room. The allegation is that Obama convinced Hillary to concede – and now some Team Clinton people are bent out of shape over that. The article says that some on her team want to have the multi-State recount; they apparently believe that this election result can be reversed. These are people who nearly became our government, folks – completely divorced from reality. The votes were cast, they have been counted – recounts, at most, move a few votes either way. If Hillary had lost all three States by, say, a couple hundred votes each, that would make it worthwhile to fight it out…but she lost Michigan by more than 10,000 votes, and that’s the closest vote total (to overturn it, it wouldn’t be a matter of just finding 10,000 Hillary votes that were somehow overlooked – given the way it went, any uncounted/miscounted votes are likely to be roughly even between the two candidates; for this to work, Democrats would have to find like 30,000 votes…and with Hillary getting a miraculous percentage of them…and they’d have to do this three times to change the election result). There’s no possible way that any conceivable form of recount can alter that. Taking one thing with another, I’m pretty sure it is Team Clinton people ultimately behind Stein’s recall effort…but as Obama’s former communications director put it, they’d have been wiser to put the money into the Louisiana Senate runoff. The good news in all this: our opponents are monumentally stupid. Trump might be in for a very easy time, after all.

There is a gutsy prediction out there of what it’ll look like after the recount is completed.

The European Union has halted talks on making Turkey a member. Good to point out right now that Turkey is a NATO ally…which means if Russia were to attack Turkey, we’d be committed to going to war against Russia; you know, sending our sons and daughters to die in the defense of Turkey’s tyrannical regime. Please explain to me, again, just why we have to retain NATO…

Some people are saying that Trump’s business interests amount to an emolument from foreign princes and potentates, in violation of Constitutional provision. Some people need to get a life. Suppose Trump divested himself of all his properties and holdings…ok, so now he’s got $10 billion in cash – what’s he supposed to do with it? Stuff it under his mattress? No, he’d have to put it somewhere…and anywhere he puts it might (and probably will) have some sort of foreign connection. Demanding Trump divest is to set up an impossible situation – which is probably why some people are bringing it up.

Should Trump deny access to MSMers who were in Clinton’s pocket? I say, “yes”. Why in heck would you want to give access to people who are doing to deliberately lie about you? Who are nothing more than stenographers for the DNC? Deny them access – give access to new, upcoming reporters who will know their access depends on reporting honestly.